


anonymity

by VictoriaG16



Category: Brooklyn Nine-Nine (TV)
Genre: Angst, Anxiety, Gen, Prison, Season/Series 04
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-03
Updated: 2018-01-03
Packaged: 2019-02-27 17:18:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,197
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13252926
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VictoriaG16/pseuds/VictoriaG16
Summary: Rosa is lonely. She thinks that's part of the point of prison, but she's always felt like this.





	anonymity

**Author's Note:**

> ANNNND i return to my favorite hobby: writing very poor fanfiction in which i project onto fictional characters
> 
> this is my first b99 fic so yay i love rosa we're both gay and have anxiety

You’ve known this about yourself for a long time. But, not even your mother knows. Not your sisters. Not your best friend (that’s tricky, though. Because you’re not sure if you have one. But that’s a problem for another day). 

It’s funny how much of your life fits that premise. You’re bisexual. You have anxiety. You secretly like too-sweet coffees when it’s particularly cold and windy. You’ve spent a lot of your life crying yourself to sleep and washing your face the next morning and putting on eyeliner so nobody would know.

And now, you’re in fucking prison. And that's all you can think about.

As far as you’re concerned, there is no good side to prison. The food is awful, the clothes make you itch, you have to clean the floors every damn day. Oh, and you’re more alone than you’ve ever been in your entire life and the thought that you could be spending a decade and a half in here, like this, makes you want to scream.

You can’t sleep. So you lay awake in bed most nights, eyes closed, breathing slow, but not sleeping. Your mind is too fucking wired for that. You know it shows on your face because you can’t use concealer when Amy and Charles and the Captain and Sarge and  _ Gina _ visit. Your eyes look hollow and sunken and you look like you haven’t gotten a good nights’ rest in months. Because you haven’t.

Fuck prison. Especially because you’re innocent and you feel a little bit like you deserve this. You don’t know why. But you think you  _ deserve this _ .

The anxiety started when you were fifteen. You walked into your homeroom and suddenly you were overwhelmed by a twisting in your stomach and you were hyper-aware that everyone else seemed to be wearing bright colors, shorts, and had straight hair. Your darkness and curls seemed so out of place. You realized you were an outsider. And you had to be okay with that. Even if it meant not having any goddamn friends.

You get through high school as best you can. And you decide you want to become a cop. You think you’d be good at it: you’re impartial, you’re tough, and you like a challenge. You start out a community college while working in a coffee shop. The latter only lasts a month because you’re too blunt to be dealing with people all damn day. So you start doing night security at a local museum. It’s not a difficult job, and there’s nothing of value in the small museum, but you’re on edge every second you’re on the clock, and almost every minute off it too.

By the time you’re finished with college, you’ve picked up yoga. You think it’s an interesting juxtaposition, because you like to make people think you’re tough and have a heart of ice, but really, that’s just a front because you’re uncomfortable with people seeing your truth. You might be a hardass, but you’re also a romantic underneath it all. And, you like the calmness and flexibility that comes with yoga. So you do it. Privately. Like everything else you do.

You join the NYPD. Partly because you need to get out of the small town you grew up in, upstate a little bit. Partly because you like the anonymity of the big city. You can blend in. For the first time.

You meet Jake Peralta at the academy, and at first he’s annoying as hell and you try not to break his arm when he asks you out for a drink. But then he reads the look on your face and adds, “As friends?”

You agree. You get drinks with him. And somewhere, maybe four shots in, you realize that Jake is possibly the funniest person you’ve ever met. And he’s the first friend you’ve had in years. He’s a good guy, with his heart in the right place, and he’s going to be a good cop. You let him see you smile a few times, even, so he knows you don’t hate him.

But you still keep him at a distance. You never ask him over for beers and trashy movies at your apartment, despite the fact that you really do enjoy his company. You makes sure he gets home safe several times, but you hold your liquor well enough. You laugh with him, but you don’t talk about family or past or anything like that. Because after all these years, you still have that budding feeling that something’s going to go wrong in your stomach. Twisting and turning and pulling and stretching. You wish you could get rid of it. You want to be friends with Jake, you want to have a close friend, you want the ability to let someone see the real you. But you...just can’t.

You’re always going to be an outsider, you realize. Always.

It’s almost more comfortable, though. You like it a little.

Throughout the following years - graduating the academy and becoming a cop and then moving three times because you don’t know if you feel safe  _ you just don’t know _ and then becoming a detective and now you’re in prison - you’ve always felt this way. You’re fucking amazing at hiding it, but you still feel this way. You remember once when Amy was telling you about her own struggles with panic attacks and you almost said “me fucking too” but the words died in your throat. You couldn’t. Ironically, it was that very feeling in the pit of your stomach that spread to every inch of you, the one you were trying to tell her about, that makes you stop.

You’re not an emotionless robot, like Jake likes to joke. You have feelings. You just don’t like telling other people them. It gives them an upper hand on your. Vulnerabilities. And maybe your fear of being vulnerable has gotten worse since you went into a high-stress job with long hours. But you don’t know what to do about that.

And now you’re in prison, laying in the dark, curled up around your weakly stuffed pillow, trying not to cry as your shoulders shake and your head pounds and your stomach tumbles and turns. You’re not going to cry and you’re not going to be sick and you’re going to wake up tomorrow and feel  _ fine _ .

You won’t, you know that, but you try to keep your spirits up.

You know it is kind of your fault. If only you’d been a better detective, if only you’d done something differently, if only you’d not held everyone at an arm’s length, if only you’d actually dealt with this…

You feel guilty when you remember the Captain and Sarge reaffirming your innocence and telling you to keep your hopes up and the Captain saying your first name over and over. You roll over onto your stomach and close your eyes and take a deep breath (imagining your stomach expanding on the inhale and contracting on the exhale, even if you can’t do much more yoga in here). 

You promise yourself: when you get out of this fucking place, you’ll be better. You’ll make yourself better.


End file.
